


Don't I Bleed?

by PeverellSlytherin



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 20:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30061020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeverellSlytherin/pseuds/PeverellSlytherin
Summary: What happened to Hotch in the days he got home after Foyet's attack?
Kudos: 6





	Don't I Bleed?

Coming home was necessary. Coming home didn't feel like home. Not anymore. There was no false feeling of peace, no blanketed safety.

Every stitch was pulling tight through his tension. It felt like each of the 9 stab wounds wanted to tell him that they were borne here. But what else could he do?

Jessica had taken Jack until Hotch was healed. He was in no shape to care for anyone right now. He should have been moved to a rehabilitation ward for the week, but he refused and signed himself out, of course.

He thought he would be able to handle it. When he came back, the carpet was already replaced, the bullet hold was fixed. He hated it. 

He refused to take his pain meds. He had to be alert. And he was. At every sound and perceived movement in his periphery. 

He went to bed exhausted due to the stress on his body that night and nearly pulled a stitch due to nightmares. 

Daily, he would try to go back to normal. He would try to distract himself. He would run through so many dressings that he had to have spares delivered. He refused to call a soul. He ate toast and sometimes a bit more.

And then one day, he woke up. He walked to the shower and broke all the knuckles of his right hand on the tiles lining the shower wall. He didn't care about the cracked tiles, the blood seeping from his hand or that his body was now running only on adrenaline and zero else.

Nothing felt right. The blood on the carpet should have been there. He nearly died there. He was somebody. He wasn't a ghost. He wasn't a figment. He hurt and he bled and it should have been there. 

The bullet hole should have been there. It was real too. It all happened. It couldn't be fixed that easily. He couldn't be fixed that easily. He wanted it to be as painfully difficult to righten his surroundings like he himself was. 

It wasn't fair. He wasn't weak. He wasn't broken on purpose. Nothing should just be fine. 

Perhaps it was that reason he took his gun and emptied his clip in the very same wall the first bullet went through.

And perhaps, perhaps that was the reason he finally took one of his kitchen knives and carved out a stretch of the new carpet. He pulled and ripped the carpet fibres, and his own stitches, until he was left with only cement. The only part of flooring still original to that night. 

The cement that still had some of his blood visibly seeped into it. He stared at it until it didbt feel like a repressed nightmare anymore. He stared at it until every moment was relived. He stared at it. And he wept.


End file.
